How Twitter’s Network Effects Have Made The App What It Is Today
For those who do not know Twitter is a social media app that has been around for may years. Many use the social platform to express themselves in multiple ways. Over the years has grown from been just a social media platform now owning apps such a Gnip and Periscope.
Twitter is known for its ability to share information and act as a viral marketing tool. 80–90% of users access the app frequently on a monthly basis. This demonstrates that engagement is high and the people who use the app are on it on a regular basis. It allows people to create a profile and follow not only other people just like them, but also celebrities, news platforms and even particular hashtags. For those that follow each other back they are able to have conversations on private messages, it can make a group of people with similar interests come together and have direct conversation hence demonstrating a direct effect.
It also allows individuals to share what is on their mind through tweets these are small sentences of 140 characters that allow people to share what they are thinking or feeling. It can be open for everyone to see and can be liked or re tweeted by others if the the feel the same way. What has happened over the years is people have been using tweets as a way to promote their content. For example twitter has become a really popular app for signers or youtube content creators as they can simply share a link of their content on twitter with some hashtags and reach a bunch of people that they would not have had otherwise. It has become a great marketing tool and allows individuals to utilise their links, videos and pictures to reach a larger audience. This is part of an indirect network effect.
Another major aspect of Twitter that is heavily used is sharing information. Often when there is a big news story out if you google it tweets from news anchors or news broadcast pages will pop up. Twitter does a great job of bringing news to the people. It has a category with the top trending topics which essentially is the things that as a whole have been talked about the most. Moving to a society in which not many of us buy newspapers anymore Twitter has become a great daily check for individuals to keep in touch with what is happening around them.
Culturally twitter has created a community in which people can share their opinions, thoughts and content with others. There are multiple sub communities based on individual interest which has helped in bringing people together in ways that other apps do not. This is why the app has managed to maintain such high engagement from its long term users and attract new ones too. It has provided its users with value of visiting the app which has assisted them with maintain and increasing profits. Because of this value the network effects of Twitter has become stronger hence why they have managed to keep relevancy whilst not completely changing their brand,
Reference List
Gobry, P, E. (2014). How network effects explain the future of Twitter. Retrieved from https://theweek.com/articles/442111/how-network-effects-explain-future-twitter
Gorton, D. (2021). Top 7 Companies Owned by Twitter. Retrieved from https://www.investopedia.com/articles/insights/082216/top-8-companies-owned-twitter-twtr.asp
Platform Thinking Labs. (2021). How small ideas like Twitter, WhatsApp, and Airbnb create large value through network effects. Retrieved from https://platformthinkinglabs.com/materials/twitter-whatsapp-uber-airbnb-network-effects/
Sidemen. (2021). Sidemen. Retrieved from https://twitter.com/Sidemen?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor
